Revive the F8 method of booting Windows 8 into Safe Mode

[Chiefcrowe]

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/wi...thod-of-booting-windows-8-into-safe-mode/7643

 

[ViRGE]

I ended up creating a fake Win7 entry in BCD and setting it as the default; but this is far less hackish.

 

[Lanyap]

Thank you. I am in the process of trying to troubleshoot a Dell Inspiron 660 with Win8. Win8 freezes on the start screen when it boots up. This is the first time I've worked on a Win8 system and I have to say it's really crappy for troubleshooting. If it had a normal F8 safe mode function I could have tried a system restore.

 

[ViRGE]

If Win8 fails to boot twice, it should kick over to the recovery environment automatically.

 

[Lanyap]

If Win8 fails to boot twice, it should kick over to the recovery environment automatically.

I finally called Dell since this is a new PC and he had me do that but it still didn't work - just a black screen. He's sending me a rescue flash drive boot disk but it will take several days. My neighbor had to have it working before then so I hooked up a second HD and loaded Win7. It's working great now. I can't believe all the changes they made to Win8 to make it so difficult to trouble shoot and handle these types of problems. All the hardware diags ran ok so it has to be Win8.

We're trying to decide if we want to return it to SAMS club and order a new Dell Optiplex with Win7.

 

[ImDonly1]

If Win8 fails to boot twice, it should kick over to the recovery environment automatically.

Should but doesn't always work that way. It's kind of crap really.
For example my desktop would boot past the windows logo to what I assume was into the desktop, except the screen was black and I couldn't do anything. I think widows assumed my pc booted normally and wouldn't let me get into safe mode. It took like 15 forced restarts before I could get into the troubleshooting menu.